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Open Cities - Opinions Sought on Merge Prefs


Arthmoor

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Long story short, OBSE has made some huge advances lately which have me rethinking methods for dealing with incompatibilities that currently use a boatload of patch files.

 

Given the complexities of the way things are done now, I'd like to find out from those of you who use Open Cities Reborn or Open Cities Classic what you prefer to do when it comes to using the mod. Do you prefer to use each city individually to mix and match with some other mod? Do you use all of the cities in the full merge package? Inquiring minds would like to know!

 

The reason I'm not asking about keeping the Outer Districts module separate from a full merge pack is because that's technically not necessary with OBSE. An ini file read at game start could determine if those districts are open or closed and act accordingly based on a preference set in an ini file. The obvious advantage to this being that it would free up a mod slot but still offer the modularity aspects. This is only going to be possible to do with the districts though because they don't change landscape details.

 

It will not be possible to retain toggles to switch off the other 7 cities in OC Reborn due to landscaping differences. Often vast once, especially with Leyawiin.

 

In OCC, this would be a feasible thing to do since they retain the vanilla landscaping. Although it would still come with limits because it would be unlikely to be able to properly toggle one off for another city mod which makes drastic changes to the landscape.

 

So please vote and feel free to discuss your reasons for voting. I've posted this here figuring it may get more exposure since anyone downloading either OCR or OCC is already a member here and can just swing by to vote :)

 

Results will be combined with the poll results from the BGS forum as well. Hopefully you guys don't go off and double vote on me :P

Edited by Arthmoor
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HI!

I'm not using but i'm going to give a suggestion, i think that it would be better if there were a modular option (a plugin for each city) or if the user just want a plugin for everything they could use that too giving user the opportunity to choose just like better cities is.

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HI!

I'm not using but i'm going to give a suggestion, i think that it would be better if there were a modular option (a plugin for each city) or if the user just want a plugin for everything they could use that too giving user the opportunity to choose just like better cities is.

 

Do to Arthmoor's generous foresight, Open Cities is already Modular. ;)

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Yes, it is, but the poll seeks to find out how many people prefer one way over the other. And if possible, to expand on why they prefer it that way.

 

I should mention of course that the Better Cities team is conducting a similar poll for more or less the same reasons. So you might want to check their poll and topic if BC is part of why you're looking to keep things modular.

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Guest deleted1354564

I'm not currently playing Oblivion, but if you remember my user name, probably you'll remember that I'm a huge fan of Open Cities. I'm checking the news about both cities and I have the horrible habit to toggle cities (remove esp, put another and so on), especially to test my mods, I prefer the Classic and I was using the merged one because I hate having dozens of esps in my load list. I found this threat because I was checking the comments on the Reborn page and I'm redownloading it because of Chorrol. I also created a house mod that should work with Leyawiin Reborn and I started to like more the city that way. What I mean is, except if my load list becomes too much huge, I may probably use Classic Anvil, Classic Skingrad, Classic Bravil, Reborn Leyawiin, Classic Cheydinhal, Reborn Bruma and Reborn Chorrol. My computer will soon be upgraded and I hope to be able to play oblivion in better graphics (nowadays, it's better to play with TLB on), so i guess I won't have problems with 7 esps.

 

Probabably you already have feedback from other people, but I think your idea is very good. If I understood right, if at least the Classic could have "toggleable" (does this word exist?) features, I could have only one esp with the seven cities, if I want a different one, I just need to disable that, instead of reinstalling everything. If I want to test, I just need to toggle, instead of reinstalling everything too.

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HI!

I'm not using but i'm going to give a suggestion, i think that it would be better if there were a modular option (a plugin for each city) or if the user just want a plugin for everything they could use that too giving user the opportunity to choose just like better cities is.

 

Do to Arthmoor's generous foresight, Open Cities is already Modular. ;)

 

I know, what i meant is that it should have both options, modular and merged.

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Probabably you already have feedback from other people, but I think your idea is very good. If I understood right, if at least the Classic could have "toggleable" (does this word exist?) features, I could have only one esp with the seven cities, if I want a different one, I just need to disable that, instead of reinstalling everything. If I want to test, I just need to toggle, instead of reinstalling everything too.

 

Don't know what TLB means, so....

 

However the feasibility of toggling individual cities on and off has proven to be a no go. It would either require heavily editing NPCs to carry double the AI package load (BAD BAD BAD) or scripting that would move the AI targets around at each reload. Neither of these options is really all that desireable.

 

Then there's the problem of handling all the doors to the interiors, something I wasn't even thinking about at the time. There would be no feasible way to handle door substitution other than to plant an entirely new set of doors just in front of the vanilla ones and hope that they toggle out properly when asked. Having beaten my head against this situation with the city gates, I'm not confident that's even possible.

 

One need only think of landscape to know why toggling an OCR city off wouldn't help in the least, and why you could never use toggles to choose classic vs reborn anywhere.

 

So the poll is basically a choice now of full merge or not. The Outer Districts will remain separate to avoid stepping on too much IC stuff if people don't want it, but it's basically an all or nothing for the rest of the cities.

 

Chances are though that I can still pull some tricks with OBSE and the patches to reduce or eliminate those, and even if that's not possible, there's tricks still left up my sleeve where I can manipulate the files to make them all mergable using Wrye Bash with the CBash component enabled.

 

I know, what i meant is that it should have both options, modular and merged.

 

That's redundant though, the packages are currently being distributed this way now. The whole point of this is to make my modding life less of a hell than it is now with the way things have to be done. It's not a decision to be taken lightly though, which is why I'm asking to see what people want/are using. I had hoped for more responses than this but it's starting to look a lot like a US mid-term election where barely anyone votes but those who didn't complain bitterly once the outcome is decided :P

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Guest deleted1354564
Don't know what TLB means, so....

 

Open your console and type TLB, all lights will be turned off. Type again, lights will be on. You can gain FPS, but looses beauty...

 

 

I see, when I wrote that I completely forget the AI packages.

Well, I think my answer is set, I prefer to have the option for separate esps. But as I said in Better Cities, sometimes we need to do a choice that may not make everyone happy. I may probably use OC or OCR anyway and I'll still look forward giving support to these cities designs everytime I decide to mod something.

 

 

If you don't mind, let me help you with the last questions:

 

@Daledge

1) What's OBSE?

OBSE = Oblivion Script Extender, several mods requires this little jewel. If you need more info, try this link

 

2) What do you mean by 'Open Cities'?

Read the description and take a look at the pictures of this mod and this mod

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